Unfortunately no one can legally use such software or even have a copy
of installation media.
No one except those who really bought it (in legal way).
Depending on local country law there are very few institutions which may
collect such things as an exception to the common rules.
Sometimes things are more complex - for example some software product
contains other party's intellectual property. It was fine when the
product was in sale - i.e. you bought it for $100 and $1 was send to
subcontractor. However what about giving it for free?
It is not a problem of software, it is also a problem of old movies or
music records.
Some very old silent movies will disappear, because the film will
crumble to ashes. Nobody will digitalize it because of copyright.
The problem and many other issues is well described in Free Culture book
by Lawrence Lessig. BTW: the book is free - everyone may download it and
read.
--
Radoslaw Skorupka
Lodz, Poland
W dniu 30.08.2023 o 18:05, Phil Smith III pisze:
Wow, those names are blasts from the past! They raise some interesting
questions:
1. If you could find a tape (and read it), would they still run?
2. If they did run, would you be legal using them without paying for them?
3. If not, would it matter? I.e., since the companies are gone, would
anyone care? I guess the worry would be that some patent troll bought the IP
and would come after you, though how they'd find you is a bit of a mystery too.
It's not like stuff that old is sending out license requests on the Internet!
ObAnecdote: In 1994 or so, VM Systems Group bought Microcom, the company that
made the Relay/Gold terminal emulator. This was VMSG's first step in evolving
from a mainframe software company to a dead^wPC software company (they sold out
to NetDamage for pennies about five years later).
Relay/Gold was written in a variant of x86 assembler from a long-dead company.
The language itself was not compatible with other assemblers. I never worked on
it, so I don't know what this means-does this suggest that, if this had been a
z/Architecture assembler, the LR instruction might have been RL or something?!?
Even that would lend itself to translation via an editor macro, you'd think.
Anyway, it apparently wasn't convertible, so for the rest of its life (and
prior to the acquisition, even), developers used bootleg copies of that
assembler. Nobody was happy about it*, but we couldn't find anyone to pay!
*Well, maybe our finance people.
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